How does it work?

Step 1 - The Red Stage

The red stage trains your cat to go into the bathroom whenever they need to go. The special white seat starts on the floor like a regular litter box before the whole thing is placed on the toilet rim when the cat is ready.

Step 2 - The Amber Stage

The amber training disc has a small hole in the centre surrounded by the litter. Your cat stands on the litter while learning to balance. Your cat will experience going into the water for the first time.

Step 3 - The Green Stage

The green and final stage uses the disc with the large hole. Your cat learns to go directly into the toilet while balancing all four paws on the seat with their rear over the hole.

Your cat won’t need litter any more and you can enjoy the benefits of a litter-free home. Later, remove the LITTER KWITTER completely!

*All purchases of Litter Kwitter come with full training both in a printed booklet and a DVD which leads you through each of the training stages: Red, Amber and Green. The videos from the DVD are also available on YouTube here

Your Questions

How it works

Litter Kwitter comes with a universal base plate (a special kind of toilet seat that fits all standard toilets), the three training discs (red, amber and green), a comprehensive instruction booklet plus a 20-minute DVD with step-by-step training directions you can see.

Read the directions and watch the step-by-step training DVD. Then make sure to take away all of the other litter trays from the house. Cats are smart, but are also creatures of habit so you need to make the Litter Kwitter is the only choice available. Show your cat where it is and help them up onto the seat so that they know it is safe. Keep the Litter Kwitter discs really clean so it is always ready to go when they are, but don’t use an ammonia-based cleaner because that can make it smell like urine to a cat’s exceptionally sensitive nose.

Litter Kwitter starts next to the toilet with a seat device and a red plastic disc full of litter – just like a regular litter box – so your cat knows what it is & where to go to use it.
Then you put it on the porcelain rim of the toilet, so your cat learns to hop up.
Once your cat gets the idea that the toilet is where the action is, you can move to the amber disc. It has a hole in the middle and room for some litter around the edges so that your cat can use it but also starts to learn how to perch on the edge of the seat itself.
It doesn’t usually take too long to get the hang of this so then it’s time to use the green disk. It has a bigger hole so that your cat can balance on the seat and go, knowing that everything will end up in the toilet.

This will depend on a number of factors like your cat’s age, temperament, sense of adventure and intelligence. Most cats figure it out in about 8 weeks or so, as long as you are patient and understanding. If your cat is older (above 8 years) or not litter trained it might take a bit longer as they have more bad habits to un-learn. Our oldest successfully trained cat so far is Oscar who started when he was 12 years old! And that’s not to mention Lucky the 3-legged cat who overcame some obvious issues to become a Litter Kwitter graduate!

The Litter Kwitter ships with full printed instructions plus a DVD to lead you through each stage of the training system. The DVD will play on a PC, MAC or DVD player. The training movies are also available to view online here.

Works for all cats

The training is organised into 3 colour-coded stages to make it simple for the cat owner to follow. The product is supplied with a 20 minute DVD to actually show cat owners what to do, how to do it & what to expect at each stage.

Yes. In fact kittens are probably the easiest to train. However, we don’t recommend training kittens below the age of 3 months or particularly small kittens as they may not be strong or coordinated enough to balance well on the toilet rim.

The simple answer is yes! Customers have told us of their 7, 10 and 12 year old cats successfully learning to use the loo. Young cats have fewer bad habits to unlearn whereas older cats have more entrenched behaviours. However, each cat is different & if you have an older cat you will know its personality well. If it’s generally bright, easy-going and receptive to change then there should be no problem. As a rule of thumb we’d say that up to the age of five or six there should be no problem. For older cats just be prepared to be a little more patient & make changes more slowly.

The Litter kwitter is made from the same material as aFirefighter’s Hard Hat – it’s about as hard and stiff as plastic can get. It wont bend, flex, crack, split or move no matter how large your cat is. If you had a lion at home then it would have no problems using the Litter Kwitter – it’s really THAT strong!

When cats jump up on the Litter Kwitter they land with the weight of a cat more than 3 times its weight. This is to do with gravity – if you weigh 100lbs and you jump up 6 inches in the air you will land with the momentum of 300lbs because your weight will be accelerated by gravity.

So, if you have a large cat that weighs 20-25lbs (10kg) the Litter Kwitter needs to cope with 60-75lbs (30kg) in weight to support the cat jumping onto it. Fortunately, the Litter Kwitter copes easily with this.

Some other products are made from the same plastic as disposable coffee cups and might not cope so well…

We see no reason why a de-clawed cat should not be able to use a toilet like any other cat. If you find your cat has trouble gripping onto the toilet seat you could use the anti-slip tape used in baths and showers to prevent slipping.

The Litter Kwitter has successfully been used to train a 3-legged cat although naturally more care needs to be taken to ensure the cat is stable on the toilet. We don’t recommend training cats with mobility issues but ultimately cat owners know their cats & can make judgements about their ability to adapt.

Yes. First ensure they all use the same litter tray rather than having their own trays. Then simply start the training from there. The most common issue with multiple cats is caused by the relative speed at which they progress – some are fast, some are slow. We have a kit of special intermediate training discs to help people train multiple cats called Doogie’s MultiKatKit™.

The Litter Kwitter can train more than one cat at a time, but you don’t want to let it get too crowded up there. It’s best to use more than one Litter Kwitter if you’re blessed with many cats – you can use them on separate toilets or even place the Litter Kwitter on a tray of water or some similar container.

The key issue with training more than one cat is that they can sometimes progress at very different paces. If you only have one Litter Kwitter we have developed a kit called the MultiKatKit – it’s a kit for multiple cats which can help more than one cat train at the same pace. It’s basically a pack with additional training discs that you use with the Litter Kwitter to smooth out the transitions from one stage to the next to make it easier for all the cats to move on together.
You can find out more by clicking here.

Ideally, yes. The Litter Kwitter uses the cat’s existing litter tray behaviour & modifies it to use the toilet. Most kittens sold by breeders are already litter trained when you buy them. However, if yours isn’t this needn’t stop you. It is relatively easy to litter train a cat & there are many websites that will show you how. And best of all you can use the Litter Kwitter to litter train your cat so you won’t need a separate litter tray.

No. The Litter Kwitter is not a permanent fixture on your toilet and requires no tools to fit. You just raise the existing seat & fit the Litter Kwitter onto the porcelain rim of the toilet bowl where it fits snugly.

The Litter Kwitter has been designed to fit on 90% of the standard oval toilet bowls in UK, USA, Europe, ANZ and Asia. It has special clips to ensure a snug fit. It is not suitable for squat toilets. If you have an unusual shaped toilet (eg round or square rather than oval) then please click here to compare the dimensions of your toilet bowl to see if it matches the specifications in the animation.

No. The last step in the Litter Kwitter training is to lower the toilet seat on top of the Litter Kwitter to get the cat used to the feel of your regular toilet seat. Once he’s happy with that simply remove the device from the rim.

The Litter Kwitter has been designed to be easily removed & replaced on the toilet rim. Simply lift the device from the rim & put the seat down to use the toilet yourself. Afterwards, raise the seat again & replace the Litter Kwitter on the porcelain rim. It’s as easy as that, no tools required. You don’t need to remove the litter & the whole process takes 5 seconds. Remember, once your cat is toilet trained you can return the toilet to normal and both use it just like everyone else in the home.

The Litter Kwitter Training Discs have ridges – or returns – to prevent litter from falling in to the toilet pan. When using litter be sure to only fill just below the height of the ridges on the discs. It is possible small amounts of litter may still fall into the toilet pan if your cat scratches around vigorously. We recommend using either recycled paper litter or crystals which should not cause any problems in the small amounts likely to be involved.

Health and hygiene

The litter box stinks! And that means germs and mess and hassle. Your cat scratches around in its own litter, getting who knows what on its paws, then walks through your home on beds, kitchen surfaces, pillows and sofas. That’s not a nice thought.

A toilet trained cat’s paws only touch your clean toilet seat – that’s far more hygienic. And no litter box to both stink up the home and need emptying/cleaning every day.

The toilet is specially designed to deal with bodily waste in the most hygienic way possible – by immersing it in water to reduce odours & then flushing it away to be treated in a water treatment plant or septic tank. When cats use the toilet it is only their paws that come into contact with the toilet seat – the same paws that already walk on bench tops, pillows & laps. The waste goes in the toilet pan & the cat does not come into contact with it.

By contrast, the litter tray allows the cat to dig in the soiled litter, get waste on their paws & then tread it around the house – on the same food preparation areas, bedding and carpets as before. A cat with cleaner paws is a more hygienic cat. The choice is this: share a toilet seat with clean paws or share every other surface in the home with dirty paws.

Toxoplasmosis is a rare but serious disease that can be carried by infected cats (and other animals) and can affect pregnant women & other vulnerable people. The regular litter tray presents a small but significant risk of infection and special care needs to be taken when dealing with it. We also don’t recommend commencing the Litter Kwitter training if you are pregnant or nursing an infant. If you are in a vulnerable group please consult your GP for advice on cat ownership & dealing with their waste.

No, they don’t. In fact the disease is quite rare. There are some misconceptions here. The disease does not start in cats: cats can become infected only if they come into contact with the disease – by eating infected meat from wildlife for example. It is relatively difficult to become infected. However, if you have any concerns please check with your vet and your doctor before beginning the training.

Cat behaviour

I know what you’re thinking – it’s just a gimmick, cats hate water, they’ll fall in. It is hard to imagine, which is why we put a training DVD in every box so you can see what to do, how to do it, and what your cat should look like while they’re learning.

But it’s not magic – it’s science. You have to understand that when cats bury their waste in the litter what they’re trying to do is hide the smell of it from predators. In the wild, this behaviour was necessary for survival.

So, what the Litter Kwitter does is slowly modify the cat’s behaviour until he or she ‘does their business’ into the toilet and discovers that the water in the toilet pan hides the smell much better than litter. And then the cat’s happy – and so is everyone else in the house! This is the understanding behind the science of the Litter Kwitter developed with PhD animal behaviourists and vets.

What about cats hating water & falling in? Well, think about this – have you ever seen a cat walking on a roof, or along a narrow ledge somewhere? Ever seen one fall off? No, I didn’t think so. And cats like water if they’re drinking it… or going to the toilet in it… they just don’t like jumping in. And who’s asking them to?

The Litter Kwitter uses the cat’s existing ability to use a litter tray & modifies it in small behavioural steps until it happily uses the toilet. Cats have a need to hide the smell of their waste which is why they try to bury it in litter or elsewhere. The underlying principle of the Litter Kwitter training is to gradually expose the cat to the toilet & allow it to experience the toilet’s ability to take away the smell of its waste.

You might as well ask “what is the advantage of a toilet trained human?”. I know cats look different but their bodies work the same way as humans in the ‘Yum to Yuk’ process: they eat (yum!), they get energy from digesting the food (to be able to claw the furniture & chase the balls of paper), and they deposit the waste (yuk!)
Toilets are designed to deal with the waste better than any other device in the house (and definitely better than plastic trays on the floor in the kitchen).

Still not convinced? Think about this: cats use the litter tray, bury the waste (by treading in it) then walks around your home on benchtops, beds, laps and rugs. Yuk! A toilet trained cat treads on a clean toilet seat (it is clean, I hope!), deposits their waste in the water, then pads around your home with clean paws: no more mess, no more germs, no more smells, no more hassle. Enough said.

Environment

Well there are two environments to discuss here – your personal home environment and THE environment (the big out there place where all the nature is). Your personal environment will definitely be enhanced by having a toilet-trained cat- no more mess, no more germs, no more smells, no more hassle, as we like to say. A hot room with a full litter tray is NOT a nice environment.

But I’m guessing you mean the big nature-y place out there. Think about this: when a regular litter tray is full it gets emptied in the garbage & ends up in landfill. In fact, about 200 kilos (440lbs) of the stuff gets dumped per cat per year. That’s 3 tonnes of the stuff over the life of an average cat! That’s not good for the environment.

Secondly, the cat’s waste is left to wash untreated into stormwater and then into our waterways. That’s also not good. Same goes if a cat does its business outside – that waste washes away in the rain but it doesn’t vaporize, it ends up in the environment. Untreated.

On the other hand, if a cat uses a toilet then its waste gets treated the same as ours – it goes through whatever processes are used to neutralize germs & toxins before being either recycled or disposed of responsibly. The exact treatment will depend on where you live & what your local authorities do. Whatever they do it has to be better than just letting the waste sit in landfill or wash down the drain, hasn’t it?

The plastic from which the Litter Kwitter is made is fully recyclable. However, as the Litter Kwitter can be cleaned & reused almost indefinitely most people keep it for future feline friends, or share it with family, neighbors & friends. Failing that, I’ve heard eBay is a great recycling facility for items in good condition. Don’t tell anyone I said that though!

Miscellaneous

The Litter Kwitter is a unique Australian design that uses an understanding of cat psychology to train them to use the toilet.

Litter Kwitter is now available worldwide with offices in California, London and Sydney. The training & product design was developed & tested with input from cat owners, vets and animal behaviorists – in particular Dr Joanne Righetti. Dr Righetti is one of Australia’s leading animal behaviorists and a regular commentator on cat behaviour for Channel 9 TV, ABC Radio, national magazines & other media. Her recent book ‘Cat Toileting’ is devoted to issues surrounding cats’ toileting behaviour & features a section on the Litter Kwitter. Dr Righetti is a Brit who graduated from Edinburgh University in Scotland before moving to Australia.

The product itself is unique in allowing the sharing of a toilet, enabling training steps to be revisited, in supporting the weight of all sizes of cats, in requiring no modifications to the toilet and in understanding that cat owners as well as cats need guidance too (via the step-by-step DVD that is supplied with each product).

The Litter Kwitter won the PIAA (Pet Industry Association of Australia) New Product of the Year award, was awarded Best Invention on ABC TV New Inventors program and was a finalist in the Fresh Innovators 2005 national competition. It was nominated for a DuPont Innovation Award and won the 2005 award for Significant Contributions to the Pet Industry. More recently it won export pet product of the year by the UK Pet Industry Association in 2013 and Pet Gift Product of the Year by Animal Planet in the USA. It was also named as Product of the Week by Jonathan Ross last Christmas but I’m not sure if that counts…

It has appeared more than 400 times on TV in over 40 countries and in countless press articles. You can see some of these appearances here. Some of the details are below:

Australian TV on Channel 10’s 5pm News, ABC’s New Inventors three times, CNN Global News Bulletin, Rove Live on Channel 10, Ch 7’s Better Homes & Garden with Dr Harry, Ch 7’s Sunrise breakfast TV show, Reuters TV News Website, CBS, Fox, CNBC TV news in the US, BBC News in the UK, BBC’s Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Animal Rescue Live, CBBC and The Money Programme, Channel 4 in the UK with Richard & Judy plus an endorsement by Ricky Gervais of The Office fame. It has appeared in many international, national, state & local newspapers including the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Sun-Herald, The London Sunday Telegraph, The West Australian and The Courier Mail. It has been featured on national and local radio including ABC National Radio, 2GB, 2UE, Today FM, WSFM in Sydney and equivalent stations in the other states.

Well of course you’re sold on Litter Kwitter! It all makes so much sense. A toilet-trained cat is even more like one of the family – a happy, hygienic friend. You can get Litter Kwitter right here on this web site. Just go to the buy now page or find a stockist near to you.

If you own a cat, this product helps the cat to be house trained with ease and is one of the best pet innovations I have seen for years.